The year was 1631. Two royal printers, Robert Barker and Martin Lucas, made one crucial mistake when reprinting the King James Bible: they forgot the word “not.” The outcome? The seventh commandment in Exodus read “Thou shalt commit adultery,” not only granting permission to cheat on a spouse but making it seem as if it was commanded by a higher power. This famous mistake, still evident in only a handful of “Wicked Bibles” around the world due to most of them being incinerated, is an example of the importance of proofreading before publishing.*
The infamous section of the 1631 printing
The printers were fined £300 for their mistake, which is more than $50,000 American dollars in today’s market. An expensive price to pay for the absence of one “not.”
In today’s world, a typo isn’t quite that expensive; to begin with, we probably won’t be fined by royalty if we make a mistake. However, the cost of a typo is high. Businesses seek perfection when communicating to customers; a mistake is not tolerated and 1) points to unprofessionalism and 2) suggests carelessness. Though a typo may, in reality, be a simple mistake that was unfortunately overlooked in multiple proofs of a document, it is never seen that way. So, they must be avoided at all costs.
In result, you will rarely see a mistake in a large company’s communication materials. This isn’t a coincidence. More than ever, heavy emphasis is placed on perfect writing. With the onslaught of social media, companies began engaging their customers multiple times a day, creating the need for social media monitors to manage their many accounts. A social media monitor is responsible, among other things, of managing the brand’s image—and that means no mistakes.
At Ivie, we use software that allows multiple viewers to view proofs, and it requires them to signal if the document needs to be corrected or not. As a marketing agency that deals heavily with print marketing, catching a mistake is crucial, and we take our jobs as “proofers” very seriously. In the Communications department alone, it is commonplace to read and re-read a document five or six times to make sure that there are no errors—all before passing it on to a co-worker to do the exact same thing.
In college, I didn’t fully realize the importance of no mistakes. The entire collegiate experience is somewhat “hypothetical”—most college students don’t see real world consequences for their student actions. A few years ago, my writing was used as an example for the entire class as good reporting journalism. Despite my article being well written, the professor pointed out that I had made the gravest journalism mistake of all: I had misspelled the name of a person in the article. Brittany instead of Britney. At the time, I rolled my eyes, thinking, “Big deal. The spelling isn’t as important as the content.”
I’ve now come to realize that any mistake, especially a spelling or grammatical error, can be even more important than the content. Why? Because the human eye is immediately drawn to obvious mistakes. So, don’t make them.
Take a look at this obvious mistake made by the school corporation in South Bend, Indiana promoting their school systems in 2010. Though the billboard was probably reviewed by close to a dozen people, no one managed to catch the (embarrassing) mistake that later made it’s way to national media.
These types of mistakes are unfortunate, and more unfortunately, they are comical as well, leading to mainstream media coverage. There’s a simple solution: proof your work and the work of your co-workers closely. It can mean the difference between flying under the radar and landing on a national fail blog.
That’s no $50,000 fine, but it’s close.
*The example of the Wicked Bible was only used to demonstrate the importance of proofreading throughout history and not used to support or criticize any religion or set of beliefs.
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